A big part of having a pig dog training facility is having the other animals around for the dogs to get used to, so that other hunters can see how their dogs will react when put into different situations. However with sheep they do require maintenance. Now that winter is over and things are starting to warm up it is time to get all of the sheep shorn. Mustering the sheep down off the hill can be a very challenging task on its own so in preparation for this I had been feeding the sheep some sheep nuts every time that I go up the hill. This way when the sheep hear my motor bike they come out to the tracks, or at least the friendlier ones do anyway. So to muster the 70 acre hill block I had my wife Janice riding the motor bike and shaking the bag of sheep nuts at
the same time so most of the sheep were following her. I was walking in behind keeping any stranglers up with the mob before they got the idea to duck off the track and back into the scrub. We had a good muster and got every sheep off the hill, 44sheep and 11 lambs. We left them in the block around the hut until we could get the shearer sorted. While the sheep where around the hut I was walking along with my five dogs and the sheep around me when I was struck from behind with such force I was knocked to the ground. It did not take me long to realise what had happened
as I turned around and saw one of my big weathers standing over me. I was not a happy chappy as I quickly jumped up and said to Jeff hold him. Jeff knew straight away which sheep was my target and he had him held on no time with all of my pig dogs standing back watching the boss give that sheep a very serious talking to. When I was in the pen with that big weather the next day he did not even try and have another go at me. If you don’t know what a weather is, it is a ram without his nuts. On Wednesday morning Janice and I turned up with the shearer and rounded the sheep up or at least tried to. On our first attempt we got 32 into the yards which Morris the shearer started on while I tried to get more sheep in. After two more goes I was down to only 3 sheep left out minus my ram and 2 of the weathers which had obviously done a runner on me to greener pastures somewhere else. They would have to wait for another day. These last 3 sheep just where not going to go any where near theyards so I had to take another approach. So with Jeff the possum dog at my side I just waited until I got close to a sheep and then I said to Jeff get him and that’s just what he did. While the
sheep where running flat out Jeff would grab them by the side of the face and hold them for me to walk back to the pen. The last sheep that I had to catch had 2 other shorn sheep with it but by then Jeff had worked out that it was the sheep with wool on that we where after. It was good to watch how he could have grabbed any one of those 3 sheep yet he got the right one. As soon as Morris had finished sheering one of the weathers the other ones attacked it as they did not recognize each other without their wool on. I have put the 4 big weathers up into the pig block as there are a lot of weeds starting to grow that I know they will eat. Also it is very important to have every pig dog stock proof so they will have to hunt though the sheep.